


Springing up from the late last root

by anxiousAnarchist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 06:58:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3165638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/pseuds/anxiousAnarchist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade English is the CEO of the world's fastest growing tech company, while Roxy is something less so somewhere in Houston. Both are convinced aliens are trying to take over the planet. They aren't wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Springing up from the late last root

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saro/gifts).



Jade English, Girl Genius, Celebrates Tenth Anniversary of Company’s Creation with Shocking Accusations

_From BBC.com_   
June 12, 2020

Skaianet, one of the largest (and largest growing) technology companies in the world turns ten years old today — and the ever elusive Dr. English, founder of SN and renown scientist, has released an intriguing press release in commemoration accusing Crockercorp of collusion with an as-of-yet unknown malevolent force.

English, now twenty-eight, founded the company as a graduate student at MIT working in the renown Dr. Clubs’s lab. In its first year, Skaianet created and marketed products as diverse as dog shampoo, sniper rifles, fertilizer, microchips, and baking supplies. When asked why the desire to branch into the realm of confectionary conveniences, English famously quipped “CrockerCorp products worked really well as fertilizer in the test stages and I still made better [expletive omitted] than they did — so I bet I can do baking better too!”

Skaianet’s rivalry with Crockercorp has grown infamous over the years, and is a subject touched upon in today’s press release as English went as far as to describe the company as “being up to absolutely no good at all!” and “paving the way for the imminent takeover of and ultimate subjugation of everyone on Earth!” Further remarks in the press release about her being “totally willing to hire any Alternian eager to escape Her battery claws” and eager to “celebrate the best of Alternia while rejecting all the [expletive omitted] parts like the part with the giant colonizing army and the really harsh policy of killing . . . pretty much everybody!!” lead some to speculate she may be referring to a figure higher up in the Alternian government.

Alternian ambassadors declined to comment on English’s allegations surrounding their possible leader’s potential attempts to possibly potentially subjugate the Earth, as well as whether or not they had a leader and if so in what form. The embassy has been notoriously tight lipped since it opened shortly after first contact with the Alternians eleven years ago. However, this is certainly not concerning in any way.

Crockercorp officials also declined to comment, though their cakes sure are tasty and delicious.

* * *

You are twenty something and on your own and free and boy is that nice! What’s not nice: how you miss John, how you miss Bec, how you even miss her sometimes, despite yourself. But beyond that: nice!!!!!!!!! You research. You take a name that’s not yours. You do more research. You build things and invent things and the money starts pouring in, the attention too. Which can be more than a little unpleasant. _Jade English, wonder child. Jade English, girl genius._ Like you get that it rhymes, but you find that a bit condescending!! You suspect Her Imperious Influence, though that may be paranoia, and at least you get a kick imagining her face every time they show Skaianet’s logo. Suck on that!!!!!

You sort of don’t care to answer much, when CNN calls? Or Time or Newsweek or any of the others. “Genius inventor escaped terrible childhood as doomed inheritor of evil alien’s batter-y empire” would make an undoubtably spectacular headline, but you don’t know if it’d make a particularly believable one, and you’re no good at selling stories. Just guns, mostly!

So it’s a lonely sort of existence, being CEO of the world’s fastest growing tech company. At least you think it should be lonely. Growing up with two other people and a dog on an island in the Pacific (especially when one of the people was a despotic tyrant) makes you think you don’t have a handle on what’s expected of you in terms of loneliness. Mostly, you just miss your dog.  
\--

You first become aware of Roxy when she worms her way into the securest servers of Skaianet’s headquarters and leaves what you think is half flirtation and half job interview: an annotated corrected version of your last published paper (with other editorial asides in a different hand, corrections of the most incomprehensible spelling errors and scattered “she’s kidding mostly” ’s). The last page has a question at the bottom: "wtf r u evne getting at??"

There’s a lot of things you could do in response. A lot of extreme and interesting ways to reply!! There could be hacks (you are being silly, nothing is being hacked, you would click a few buttons and be able to get anywhere because being the CEO of a huge fancy tech company has its privileges). You could show up at her door. But you decide the funniest thing would probably just be a one line email.

* * *

From: english@skaia.net   
To: catattack@yahoo.com   
Subject: nice!!!! 

Sorry, classified!!! [] [] [] 

Dr. Jade English  
CEO/Lead Researcher/Boss  
Skaianet

\--------

From: catattack@yahoo.com  
To: english@skaia.net  
Subject: lol what

of all the throwaway accounts in all the somethin somethin casablanca why the ehell’d yu eamil this one

what smili s where the boxs supposed to be

also imp q: classified by WHO???? or whom???? WHAT PERSON WAS THE ONE WHO CLASSIFIED the thing

\--------

From: english@skaia.net  
To: rlolz@gmail.com  
Subject: sorry would you prefer this one???

they were just smiley faces :P 

and thats . . . also classified!!!!! :O

Dr. Jade English  
CEO/Lead Researcher/Boss  
Skaianet

\--------

From: rlolz@gmail.com  
To: dogtier@gmail.com  
Subject: l’ing my f’ing A off 2 can play that gaem

ok the email thgn is cute. you sure did press all KINDS of buttons to find email addresses

i just dnt kno why u’d bother ti contct me at all fi u were just gonna tease me LIKE, whts the poinnt? you kno. nless u wanna tell me whats what but u. . . cant???

WHCH!! i fnd unliekly but . ?????

\--------

From: dogtier@gmail.com  
To: rlolz@gmail.com  
Subject: this human emotion called politeness : O

You submitted your resume, and this is me calling back!

Interview is soon . . . . . hope you’re ready!!!! ; )

* * *

— tipsyGnostalgic [TG] has begun pestering gardenGnostic [GG] — 

TG: what do u mean ’ninterveiw’  
TG: i mean I MEA N befure u go an give me the Literal Meanging of the word liek like  
TG: what duu u MEAN  
TG: u didnt have to send he that emai l  
TG: *me  
TG: u culda just fucked off and let me fcuk off and we all coulda fucked off together 

GG: that sounds . . . . . a little dirty!!!! 

TG: lma o  
TG: im glad u ahe a sense of uhumor at least  
TG *have  
TG: bt liek fror real.  
TG: i dnt like benig jerked aroijnd 

GG: i dont know why youre so baffled  
GG: or how you got my chumhandle to be honest!  
GG: i havent done anything especially baffling i think :/  
GG: just living my life! doing my job. inventing things.  
GG: revitalizing scientific fields  
GG: you know!!! 

TG: l MA O!!!  
TG: i cant tell if ur like LIEK super unaware of how super balelr that is  
TG: *bae lgr  
TG: *fuckin cool whatever  
TG: or if yr just rfuckin with me as accorind g to yr reasserch as im like a NOBODY who is super fuckin fu n to mess with  
TG: or laiek lie to or WHATEVER!!! mess iwht. lies. batter. lies. batterwithch shit. yru reatleated right  
TG: *related 

GG: : /  
GG: i dont know which is sillier  
GG: me being surprised that someone who got into my securest servers reads conspiracy theories about famous inventors  
GG: or that that someone is not totally wrong  
GG: kind. . . of?  
GG: we have a familial connection!  
GG: she has . . .  
GG: someone i am fond of : ( 

TG: THN THATS HTWHAT I DONT GET!!! ! if ur relates n shit  
TG: why r u working so ademently aginst hr 

GG: like youve never disagreed with a family member  
GG: and we’re nothing alike  
GG: for one, i am not an alien. 

TG: ok cool gonna cross that off my SWEET CONSPIRACIES LIST 

GG: really, you really do have one of those?

TG: lmao no  
TG: ok yes but  
TG: maybe 

GG: thats sort of cute : )  
GG: well we can talk about all that other stuff later too but  
GG: just so you know — i am not trying to mess with you!!!  
GG: you are clearly very talented if nothing else in getting places you shouldn’t  
GG: and . . . you seem pretty neat!!  
GG: i like employing neat people who are good at what they do

TG: so ur jus gnna fly ehre in yr fancy private jet  
TG: poke my sweet computre softwarez  
TG: take a longin look at my conspiracy baord knowin u can never have one as cool lookign  
TG: cn u at least give me a timefraem so i cn prearpe for the Hot Date  
TG: *perjbare  
TG: *prepare 

GG: no!!  
GG: depends on when i get iron lass 2.0 flight-ready  
GG: i’ll take the suit on a test drive on the way there  


TG: i cnt beiebe iim sitting here in my undrwaer typing at somenoen who has a siut of armor that flies  
TG: i nede an adult 

— tipsyGnostalgic has ceased pestering gardenGnostic — 

* * *

When your board of directors insisted you needed a bodyguard, you yelled at them for like an hour and then kicked the board table in half. They made you get one anyway. So you were like, okay, who is the coolest buffest person I can get to follow me around who is also gonna piss them off the most??? And the answer turned out to be an Alternian woman in pastels and long gloves, who glowed sometimes and never carried a gun. Kanaya is so cool, and it is so hard to give her the slip, but you manage it sometimes — a very very few sometimes — and this is one of those times.

Roxy Lalonde lives like a city’s best secret, in a huge apartment building ten stories up. The elevator’s out, so you climb.

There’s a blonde boy in a tank top at the door. “City Morgue,” he says. “You stab ‘em, we slab ‘em. How may I direct your call?”

Behind him, you can hear a woman swearing. Closer investigation reveals Roxy Lalonde, feet propped up on a table, sinking deeper into a run down couch that faces a tv. She’s holding a game controller in her hands, but she almost drops it when she looks over and sees you. A real actual sort of moment of serendipitous eye contact, broken abruptly by a series of noises from the TV that sound a lot like her character dying. 

“SHIT,” she yells, and tries to salvage the game, but her player character’s already dead. Roxy makes a face, and throws the controller to the side. “Mass Effect,” she says (and these are the first words she ever says to you). “For the irony.” 

She jumps to her feet and holds out a hand awkwardly, unsteadily, so you shake it, and so far that, at least, seems like a real thing people do during a job interview. Or when they interact for the first time. Just a general good first meeting sort of ritual instead of video games or mystery boys or the part where Roxy’s ceiling, you find, once you’ve been ushered inside, is fairly low so you have to stoop some to fit in entirely. 

Roxy looks mortified. The boy, who introduces himself as Dirk, looks faintly amused. You don’t know how to proceed from here, how you get from “so hey, I left my suit of roboarmor on the roof of your building” to “and that’s why I know for a fact that Betty Crocker is an evil alien empress hellbent on destroying Earth” while passing, on that road, the intersection of “how comfortable are you researching like, every sort of science” street and “are you single” lane. 

You cast your eyes sort of desperately (just a little!) around the one room apartment. Ah! A conversation piece. 

“Lizards?” you ask, pointing to the aquariums that, despite the cramped and disorganized space that is the abode of one Roxy Lalonde, have more than adequate room for a few tiny lizards, are well heated, well stocked, full of interesting little lizard things, basically you are saying these are spoiled little lizards! “I always kind of got the impression that you were you know, sort of a cat person.” (You are being polite. She talks about cats like a woman infected with cat loving parasites. Her shirt has a cat on it, a cat set against an endless expanse of starry sky.) 

“Can’t have cats here,” she says, “And DiStri’s probably allergic, tho I say he can take some benadryl and get the hell OVER IT, i probably am too, but anyway i appearified these guys during early stages of experimentation so it’s my fault they’re here in the first place, gotta take good care of my lil lab grown scaly babes. Isn’t that right, Pyralsprite,” she says, cooing at the bearded dragon lounging on top of a branch in the cage, “Who’s mommy’s fave frankenstinian creation?” 

“Appearify?” 

“Oh shit, you are really gonna like this.” She grins. Pyralsprite waves its arms in reptilian assent. “Let me take you to my lab.”

* * *

Her lab happens to be in the basement of the apartment building, a small room that was at one point a laundry room, but there’s a sign on the door reading “OUT OF ORDER” and underneath a lot of frankly implausible fine print about “black mold” and “contagion” and “hazardous to health.” Your nose wrinkles, cause it does sort of smell moldy outside the room, but when you enter (after Roxy “performs some sweet hacking moves on this pos door”) everything shines clean inside.

“Okay,” she says. “We are gonna start our demonstration with inanimate objects, because I am just not up to dealing with the ethical quandaries of appearifying helpless tiny froggies or something right now, if that’s cool.”

“Sure?” you say. You are out of your depth, which is really cool!

“You are gonna really really like this,” she says again, leaning unsteadily against a console as she faces two small platforms.

She demonstrates. She’s right.

“Ms. Lalonde, have you ever thought about a career at Skaianet?”

She points a finger at you. “That is Dr. Lalonde, seeing as I am accredited by the National University of Me, which is a really kickass college, I gotta tell you.”

“Dr. Lalonde then!”

“Lmao,” she says.

You’re inclined to agree!

* * *

Ok so here’s the thing about being Jade English’s lab partner: you take risks. You take big risks. Not a thing you’re unfamiliar with — please see the part where you basically laid every last ratty thumb-smudged card you had on the table with that appearifying trick — but it’s something else, what Jade does. For this part of the slideshow, reference the other part, shortly after the card-laying pumpkin-appearifying part, where she offered to take you on a tour of your new workplace immediately. The part where you forgot she’d gotten there via rocket boots and gas powered gumption. You cannot BELIEVE you get swept off your feet all Lois Lane like, and then mostly you’re just cold and breathless during the trip back.

While you tour the complex (which is how Jade refers to the massive labyrinth of labs, “The Complex!!!”) bits and pieces of The Whole Story come out: how she was raised on an island, how she has a twin brother, how her sort of mother was actually an alien. You’d feel a tightening sense of victory, of vindication, of rightness if it didn’t seem wrong with Jade English (chipper Jade English, always smiling in interviews, in candid photos, in sneakily recorded clips of her visits to different college classrooms uploaded to YouTube) actually frowning for once, hands twisting, tying and untying bits of string from her fingers. 

You’ve stopped moving around, at this point, are in a nice lovely sterile room filed with bunsen burners and petri dishes and the sorts of supplies you only ever dreamed of before approximately five hours ago. You’re listening to her tell you about the first birthday present she ever made for John, and you have to reach out and still her hands. Take them in yours, though yours are much smaller, so it makes an awkward picture. 

“You didn’t have to tell me all of that,” you say. “I mean, it is totally appreciated and also pretty interesting, and also like, it seems like you needed to talk about it with someone who would not be all, oh Jade, what tall tall tales are you spinnin about your alien island thing, but I mean, you didn’t have to. You don’t have to feel obligated or anything.” 

“Well I mean you don’t have to feel obligated to listen!” she says, with a certain sense of urgency that indicates to you that she thinks this might be a thing she thinks you’d think. Think. You’re getting sleepy, it’s getting a little harder to think thoughts through to their conclusion, so very much has happened, it feels like, today, but still sitting in the dark with Jade English’s hands in yours creates a terrible clarity and focus, even if it’s limited to touch, to the feel of her callouses compared to yours. 

“Well I don’t so there,” you say. 

“There!!!” she says. 

You lean your head down so your forehead rests against the tangle of your two palms. “Where do we even start?” you ask. 

“Start with what?” she asks. 

You’d gesture but your hands are occupied. “Stopping her. Stopping it all. Ruining ICP’s career, idk, everything.”

Jade squeezes your hands. “I’ve got a couple ideas! A couple ideas more since the day started.” 

“Does this gotta do with the appearifier, I’m assuming?” 

“Well! The appearifier in specific and also you in general!” 

“Aw shucks, I’m inspiring you to commit probably heinous acts against an evil despot this is all sorts of romantic for a first date.” 

You freeze. She freezes. In both of your defenses: it’s kind of cold in the room! But also, you said the other thing, the thing you probably shouldn’t have said, even though it was totally a joke. You sit up and sort of try and read whether or not you need to extricate your hands from hers. “Uh, I mean —“ 

“I was gonna steal her makeup,” she blurts, eyes wide, and then claps a hand over her mouth. Not in embarrassment, you think, but in a kind of glee. “Oh my god I can’t believe it!!! I can’t believe that I got handed this… really cool thing! This amazing technology, that I know nothing about —“ 

“—I barely do either to be honest —“ 

“And I was like, yes, score, I’m gonna steal her makeup and she’s gonna be super pissed!” Jade laughs and it’s not a very pretty laugh. Instead it’s a gale force wind, a bark. 

“English, you are so fuckin lucky you met me, I gotta tell you that. If this is your idea of a diabolical plan re: science and also re: invasions then we have got some WORK to do.” 

Jade tucks some hair behind her ear. “She’d just get so mad about it,” she says, smiling wistfully. “I can see it right now and it looks pretty awesome! Also —“ she pauses. “My last name is actually Harley. But you can’t like, tell anybody that. I just took English as my name cause it pisses her off lots.” 

You love Jade Har— okay you don’t like _love her_ love her you know let’s just go ahead and engage the safety mechanism on this four wheel device, but you can do nothing but marvel at her. 

“Okay Dr. Harley,” you say. “First thing tomorrow, we get crackin’ on paradoxes with regard to eyeliner.” 

She snickers. “Actually okay, okay actually we’re really gonna want to go after the blush I think.” 

You laugh too, and you don’t know what’s sleep drunk and what’s drunk drunk and what’s the beginning of some beautiful strange hand holding relationship, but you’re feeling pretty okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to scientists as well as science in general. I'm sorry, friend requester, that you netted one of the few non-scientists left in fandom. I'm also sorry I front-loaded their lives with conflict and wimped out when it came time for the sucker punch.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Heinous Acts Against an Evil Despot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7589020) by [Olive_the_Olive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olive_the_Olive/pseuds/Olive_the_Olive)




End file.
